Cooper U is on the lookout for nonprofit partners for 2014 UX Boot Camps!

The Editors

September 9, 2013

What is UX Boot Camp?

Cooper’s UX Boot Camp is a four-day immersion in our user experience design methodology for designers, developers, and product managers. The UX Boot Camp is also an opportunity for nonprofits to explore a challenge they are facing that can be helped by design and technology. Under the guidance of Cooper senior staff, UX Boot Camp students perform an in-depth field study surrounding that challenge, and the nonprofit receives multiple design explorations at no cost.

See what the students and stakeholders had to say about their experience

What can your organization expect from the UX Boot Camp?

Partnering with Cooper for the UX Boot Camp gives nonprofits a unique opportunity to tap into the design community’s collective brainpower, to uncover new ways that technology can raise awareness, build community engagement, support fundraising initiatives…whatever meets your long-term vision and goals. At the end of the four-day workshop, you will receive 4-6 design concepts that are tailored to your needs to implement as you wish.

For example, UX Boot Camp students designed digital tools for Fair Trade USA that were geared towards igniting consumer demand for Fair Trade products, fundamentally shifting the way goods are traded and purchased. And American Public Media’s Marketplace Money received designs that explored the next horizon of audio programming, with paradigm-shifting concepts to help move traditional broadcasting to digital, conversation-based, platforms.

What are the expectations of nonprofits?

Share
We ask that our partners actively share and discuss our partnership through their media channels. We’ll also deploy our social media, blog, and marketing power before, during, and after the workshop to tell our community about our partnership, what UX Boot Camp students come up with, and how that thinking helps your organization grow.

Commit
The UX Boot Camp education model is based upon hands-on learning with a real client (you), so our curriculum hinges upon this commitment of your organization’s human resources and time. As such, we expect that you will:

Collaborate with us to identify an appropriate project for UX Boot Camp students to work on that will further your business goals.

Identify and recruit approximately 6-8 people for two hours of user research interviews on the first day of UX Boot Camp.

Ensure that a minimum of one stakeholder is available for a one-hour interview on the first day, and then present again to offer feedback on the last day’s two-hour final concept pitch session.

Implement
At the end of each UX Boot Camp, your organization will receive 4-6 detailed and completely customized design concepts. We’ll coach your organization about how each design can be carried further, but implementation will be up to you.

Learn
Your organization should be open to integrating design best practices and ready to incorporate what you learn about user experience design. To help you prepare, we ask that at least one person from your organization attend either a UX Boot Camp or an Interaction Design training (we’ll foot the bill) and then present what they learn to your organization. We make this investment so that you are primed and able to take action on the UX Boot Camp concepts you receive.

Availability
We are looking for an organization that would be available for partnership during the early summer of 2014

About Cooper

Since 1992, Cooper has partnered with clients to design everything from medical devices to consumer products to sophisticated business tools. Our specialty has always been bringing clarity to complex situations. Ten years ago, we decided to expand our impact by teaching and mentoring clients and design professionals. Drawing from our 20 years of experience, we offer custom training for companies and public classes in interaction design, visual interface design, design leadership and our intensive UX Boot Camp.

If your organization is interested in partnership…

We’d love to hear from you. Please email UXBCPartnership@cooper.com with the following information to get the conversation started:

A brief description of your organization.

A particular problem that you think could benefit from a UX or service design solution.

An explanation of how this design opportunity would benefit your organization’s business goals.

After we receive your email, we will carefully consider what our partnership would be like. During the week of October 7th, we’ll reach out to the nonprofits that will best align with the vision of the UX Boot Camp.